8
COMPETITIVE CITIES FOR JOBS AND GROWTH
101720
COMPANION PAPER 8
WHAT MAKES A
GOOD CITY STRATEGY?
Dmitry Sivaev
December 2015
2
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Background and Acknowledgements 5
Executive Summary 7
Introduction 8
What is a good Local Economic Development strategy, and how can we measure it? 9
Key success factors for city strategies 10
Methodology of analysis 10
Identifying success factors 10
Preconditions 10
Content 12
Implementation 13
Focus on three critical areas 15
Who should take the lead in the strategic planning and implementation process,
and how should it be organized? 15
What analytical tools should be used? 17
How should a strategy be funded? 18
A checklist for a good city strategy 19
Concluding Remarks: Improving Strategic Planning for Cities 20
3
4
BACKGROUND AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I
nterest in studying city competitiveness has
skyrocketed in the last few years, although the topic
itself is far from new. Mayors and city leaders have long
worried about the obstacles to job creation, competitiveness
and economic growth that plague their cities.
This paper is part of a broader research initiative,
the “Competitive Cities Knowledge Base” (CCKB)
project, managed jointly by the Trade and Competitiveness
Global Practice and the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience
Global Practice of the World Bank Group. Its objective is to
create a knowledge base on competitive cities, to improve the
understanding of job creation at the city level, and to serve
as a foundation for a Community of Practice on this topic
for World Bank Group staff, academia, donor partners and
practitioners.
Our attempt in this initiative has been to focus our
energies on bringing a robust body of knowledge to
our clients — to address their questions on benchmarking
their performance, on understanding what has worked elsewhere and what has not, and on how to organize for delivery
in different contexts.
Our approach has focused on using different meth­
odologies to tackle these questions, based on best
practices, data availability, replicability and sim­
plicity. In many cases, we have leveraged new and existing
data sources to shed light on some unanswered questions; in
others, we’ve conducted primary research, since the available
data were inadequate. We have looked at global and regional
trends, comparing different typologies of cities – by income,
sector, region and so on. And we have buttressed these
findings with econometric “deep dives” and case studies in
selected countries and cities. We are now able to inform the
continuing debates on what really matters for economic outcomes in cities with an analysis of over-arching trends and
associations, supplemented with rigorous analyses to identify
causal relationships. We also try to “stand on the shoulders of
giants” where possible: We use and refer to existing resources
(research, analysis, toolkits and experts).
The summary findings of the overall research are presented
in the framework paper, “Competitive Cities for Jobs and
Growth.”1 The objective of this paper is to review and
analyze the best practices in developing and imple­
menting city strategies, particularly in lower-in­
come environments. It reviews available evidence to
formulate the list of basic criteria that good strate­
gies should meet, discusses three key questions that
city strategies should address, and suggests how the
widely applied LED and CDS approaches can be im­
proved in the future.
This note was prepared by Dmitry Sivaev, with critical guidance
from Austin Kilroy and Sameh Wahba and valuable advice from
Soraya Goga, Valerie Joy-Santos and Ming Zhang. The co-TTLs
of the CCKB project are Austin Kilroy and Megha Mukim. Overall
guidance on the project has been provided by Stefano Negri, Sameh
Wahba, Ceci Sager and Somik Lall as senior advisors.
The team would like to gratefully acknowledge the European
Commission, the ACP Secretariat and the governments of Austria,
Switzerland and Norway for financing this study through the
Competitive Industries and Innovation Program (CIIP).
5
6
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
T
he increasing recognition of the importance of cities,
and the global trend toward devolution, has led
to a proliferation of various city-development
strategies. City strategies can be powerful tools for making
cities more competitive, but the story of city-level strategic
planning knows as many failures as successes. Thus there is a
need to understand what makes a good city strategy.
There are a number of methodological issues associated
with evaluation of the quality of strategies. Because of
this factor, most literature sources use process-based, rather
than outcome-based approach to evaluating strategies.
This paper uses a review of conceptual and case-study evidence and adopts the process-based evaluation approach to
identify a list of 12 key components of good city strat­
egies. The analysis is broken down into three broad groups of
factors: preconditions, content and implementation.
Main preconditions for a successful strategy include strong
leadership and a well-designed participatory process that
engages the private sector early on and that links to the
national policy context.
In terms of its content, a good strategy should offer deep
analytics, strong grounding in the local context, and a vision
of the city’s future. Clear priority actions and measurable
targets are required to make sure that this vision can be
achieved.
Three key problems of city strategies are discussed in more
detail:
What is the right balance of private- and public-sector engagement? Institutional structures for implementation of city
strategies may vary dramatically. It is most important that
the selected structure reflect the capacity of local actors and
that it suits local conditions.
What analytics to use? It is more important to make sure
that the analytical process follows the full cycle from data
collection, to data cleaning and analysis, to data interpretation, concluding with the application of results in policy
prioritization. The choice of specific analytical techniques is
less important.
How to fund strategy implementation? Funding sources may
include a combination of national, local and donor funding.
However, it is important that strategic priorities be reflected in local budgets, and that funding for key initiatives be
secured early on.
Local Economic Development (LED) and City Development
Strategy (CDS) approaches that were widely popular over recent decades have not achieved notable success in improving
the competitiveness of cities. The revision of the way multilateral and donor agencies approach city strategies should focus
on offering more analytical, prioritization and funding tools along
with less rigid and more adaptable implementation structures.
The implementation of a strategy should be planed early on,
with close attention given to the institutionalization of
strategies and to securing sources of funding. These measures
protect strategies from unexpected political and economic
shocks.
7
Introduction
City strategy is a structured attempt at planning
and organizing interventions at a city- or metropol­
itan-area level with the purpose of improving eco­
nomic development and competitiveness outcomes. In
recent decades, city strategies have become a popular concept.
As cities are gaining recognition as places that have the
greatest growth potential, but that simultaneously face the
toughest development challenges, a number of donors and
development agencies have become very active in the field of
strategic planning for cities. A number of methodologies have
been developed and a vast number of strategy-development
projects have been implemented across the world. The most
popular approaches to strategic planning include Local Economic Development (LED) and City Development Strategy
(CDS) (See Box 1). In this paper, we investigate the state of
strategic planning for cities through a review of theoretical
and empirical literature, a review of development strategies
of world-leading cities, and lessons from case studies of successful cities from around the world.
The global trend toward empowering local govern­
ments has helped lead to the proliferation of various
LED strategy methodologies. The global trend toward
the decentralization of governance functions is in full swing
today.2 A number of countries in Latin America have gone
through these exercises over the last two decades and, currently, a number of African countries (including Kenya and
Ethiopia) are in the process of localizing government powers
and responsibilities. As a part of the devolution process,
local governments have been charged with various strategy-development exercises. As a result, a host of strategies are
being delivered by cities of all sizes in countries spanning all
continents and all income levels. A number of development
and donor institutions have been active in this field, offering
cities in the developing world their methodologies for designing and implementing strategies for local development.
Are these strategies of good quality? A good strategy
can play a crucial role in directing and organizing economic
development efforts as part of a city’s journey toward competitiveness. But poorly organized strategic exercises may
lead to a major waste of resources and may cause more harm
than good to city economies.
So, what is a good city strategy? To answer this question, this paper looks at the theoretical and empirical LED
and CDS literature, strategies of cities that are recognized as
world leaders, and recent case studies from successful cities.
What should cities keep in mind when designing a strategy?
And how should development partners improve their efforts
to support cities in organizing city strategies that work?
Box 1: Defining Local Economic Development and City Development Strategies
‘Local Economic Development’ is one of the method­
ological approaches to organizing policy measures
and interventions to promote economic growth and
poverty alleviation at the subnational level. This
approach has been promoted by major development institutions, including the World Bank Group, and has been widely
used for strategic planning at the city level. It focuses on
enhancing competitiveness, increasing sustainable growth,
generating employment, and ensuring that growth is inclusive. It is based on a participatory approach to planning and
offers local government, the private sector, the not-for-profit
sector and local communities the opportunity to work together to improve the local economy. While strategic planning is
an important aspect of LED, the concept is broader, because it
covers the way of managing and supporting a local economy.
‘City Development Strategy’ is a strategic planning
tool for cities that focuses on developing a coordinat­
ed institutional framework to help a city make the
most of its opportunities. Just like LED, CDS has been
8
adopted by a range of development institutions, including the Cities Alliance and the Asia Development
Bank. In essence, the CDS approach is very similar
to LED, and they share the principles of participatory planning as one of the core values. Unlike LED,
however, CDS looks at a broader array of development
outcomes, often prioritizing service provision and
poverty alleviation over economic growth indicators.
We note that there is an extensive literature on each of
the components associated with LED and CDS, including real-estate development and finance, infrastructure provision, SME support and cluster development.
In this paper, we focus on LED and CDS literature
with capital letters — i.e. development literature that
focuses on a city (or other subnational administrative
unit) as the unit of analysis, and that aims to develop
a whole city rather than a single industry or group
of industries, or to target a different specific issue of
urban growth.
What is a good city strategy and how
can we measure it?
A strategy can be defined as “a method or plan chosen
to bring about a desired future, such as the achievement of
a goal or the solution to a problem.”3 This understanding
of a strategy implies that we can evaluate a strategy only by
linking the actions that it inspired to the outcomes that it
delivered.
Various institutions promoting strategic planning
for cities recommend a set of methodologies for de­
signing strategies. The World Bank Group, OECD, Cities
Alliance, the Asian Development Bank and others have been
playing an active role in helping cities shape strategies. Each
has developed and branded a separate methodology. Each
organization frames its own set of priorities and even its own
understanding of what LED and strategic-planning exercises
should entail. Over the past 20 years, a number of cities have
designed strategies following these methodologies. Has it
paid off?
Assessing the quality of these methodologies – and
the resulting strategies – has been difficult. There are
several reasons for this difficulty, as suggested by the available literature:
1) Selection Bias. Organizations promoting LED or CDS
have an incentive to report the success of the
strategic projects that they have been involved
with. Most reviews of the strategies are conducted by
organizations that provide LED or CDS services as a part
of their operations. This means that their reviews focus
on the strategies that those organizations, themselves,
have helped develop and implement On the one hand,
this means there are plenty of studies that purport to
evaluate city strategic plans. On the other hand, these
evaluations do not use counterfactuals to rigorously
assess impact. This evaluations may not be particularly
reliable, because the institutions have an incentive to
exaggerate their successes and to downplay difficulties to
promote the quality of their work. Often such evaluation papers are predominantly descriptive. They provide stories of “good practice” – and thus there is a bias
toward presenting successful cases, rather than examples
of failure. It is hard to find examples of failed strategic
exercises.
2) Comparability. Comparability of results between and
among organizations is limited, because each or­
ganization’s understanding of a successful strat­
egy differs. City Alliance City Development Strategies
(CDS) has a very strong poverty-alleviation focus; the
International Labor Organization version of LED strategies targets job creation as the key indicator of success;
and the World Bank Group’s LED approach targets a wide
range of economic outcomes. Sometimes the objectives
can even differ between different evaluation documents
from the same organization.4
3) Focus on Process rather than Economic Outcomes. Projects
are sometimes assessed as successful if they com­
ply with methodological recommendations for
project design and implementation without fully
assessing economic outcomes. 5
--
For example, in Karu, Nigeria, the LED process has
been evaluated as successful because it created a
“Business and Economic Development Committee”
to ensure a participatory process, but the overall
longer-term economic outcomes resulting from this
strategy are not clear. 6
--
In Rosario, Argentina, the city was praised because
it successfully managed to frame the LED process in
a strategic document signed by major stakeholders,
which was used to negotiate loans from development institutions – but, once again, it is difficult to
find information on the economic outcomes that
resulted.
4) Focus on the Public Sector’s Role. Most prior studies
focus on the role of local government, while miss­
ing the dynamics of interaction with the private
sector. Although a participatory planning process is one
of the key focuses of most LED and CDS methodologies,
the cases in which the private sector facilitates city-wide
strategic exercises appear to be underrepresented in this
literature, as are bottom-up initiatives in general.
There is thus a need for a more rigorous evaluation of
the impact of city strategies. Ideally, the strategy-evaluation exercise should have started with the collection of
strategies from 10 to 15 years ago, the recording of their
characteristics, and the collection of data on the performance
of cities in the 10-to-15-year period since the initiation of the
strategy. It would then require a counterfactual to “test” the
impact of the strategy, rather than simply following a “before
and after” approach. Such a rigorous evaluation process has
not been possible, mainly because of the difficulty of isolating
the impact of the strategy from various other countervailing and intermediating factors. Strategies by definition are
aimed at the medium to long term, and, during this period
of implementation, governments can change (often resulting
in changes to the city strategy) and exogenous effects can
have a large impact (which makes it difficult to understand
the impact of the strategy itself). Furthermore, if a strategy
is not implemented in full, or if it is dropped halfway, there
is no way to evaluate whether it has delivered on the original
promise. For these reasons, this exercise was ended, even
after experimenting with tracking performance of cities in
the years after they adopted such strategies.
This paper, instead, uses a review of evidence from
various process-based (as opposed to outcome-based)
assessments of LED strategies and from case stud­
ies of economically successful cities. The limitations
to this exercise are duly noted, but it is used to gain insight
and guidance for cities attempting to undertake a strategic
economic planning exercise.
9
Key success factors for city strategies
cities can only dream of. The lessons from these world
leaders will not apply across the board, yet they help verify the findings from other literature and check whether
the strategic-planning thinking in the developing world
is evolving in the right general direction.
Methodology of analysis
This section develops a list of key success factors for
successful city strategies. This analysis is structured
around three key aspects of strategy development:
•
Preconditions: What are the institutional characteristics that should be in place before the strategy is developed in order for it to be a success?
•
Content: What should go into a strategy? Which
themes should be covered, how should priorities be identified, and how should targets and policies be formulated?
•
Implementation: What are the most important things
to consider and include within the strategy to make sure
that it is implemented and that its targets are achieved? 7
We use the following four sources of evidence:
1) Methodological documents. In recent years, a number of development organizations – including the World
Bank Group, UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance – have issued methodological guides for LED strategies and CDSs.
These documents offer step-by-step recommendations
for strategy development, often as detailed as instruction on how to conduct roundtables and specific analytical exercises. Comparative analysis of these documents
helps identify difference in their understanding of key
priorities in the city strategy development process.
2) Reviews of implemented LED and CDS projects.
Since a number of development and donor bodies have
been closely engaged with strategy development initiatives for the past two decades, a significantly large
number of projects have, by now, been implemented.
Development organizations as well as independent
researchers have made attempts to look back and learn
from the experience of strategic planning initiatives at
the city level. These documents are subject to a number
of biases, as discussed in the previous section, and they
use a predominantly process-based approach to their
evaluation of strategies. However, they provide the most
comprehensive empirical body of knowledge about the
factors that are associated with good city strategies.
3) Development strategies of world leading cities:
New York, London and Sydney. There is no precise
way to prove that the approaches used by New York,
London or Sydney represent best practice. However, the
prominence of these cities, their status as global economic hubs, their reputation for good governance and their
well-established strategic planning process suggest that
they are representative of the global frontier in development strategies for cities. Of course, these cities have the
resources and the technical capacity for the design and
implementation of strategies that most developing-world
10
4) Evidence on the importance of strategic planning
from the case studies of six successful cities in
different regions of the world including Bucaramanga (Colombia), Changsha (China), Coimbatore (India),
Gaziantep (Turkey), Kigali (Rwanda), and Tangier (Morocco). The case studies were developed as a part of the
Competitive Cities initiative of the World Bank Group.
They had the ambition of identifying the factors behind
the success of top-performing cities. The role of strategic
planning was one of the factors investigated in the case
studies. The conclusions of the case studies help identify
which specific aspects of the strategic-planning process are the most important in the developing-country
context. They also offer the only piece of evidence on the
role of strategic planning where cities are not selected
because they have used a structured planning process,
which adds an important perspective to the evidence
base.
Identifying success factors
In the rest of this section, the key findings will be summarized for each of the groups of characteristics: Preconditions,
Content and Implementation. See Table 1 for a more detailed
summary of characteristics that are associated with good city
strategies across various sources of evidence.
Preconditions
Across all different types of evidence, there is a unan­
imous agreement that certain institutional charac­
teristics are crucial for the success of strategic-plan­
ning exercises at the city level. These are:
•
the leadership and commitment of the local government
and the city leader(s) (mayor or otherwise);
•
the inclusivity and participatory nature of the strategy-design process; and
•
the close dialogue between public and private actors.
It is most striking that these issues come up as the most
important across cities at different income levels.
London, New York and Sydney clearly demonstrate
the commitment of city leaders to strategies. The commitment of a city’s leader to the strategy sends a strong signal
to the private sector, to public-sector employees and to the
residents of the city. This helps organize the implementation
effort, gives the strategy additional momentum, and reduces
the level of uncertainty about a city’s future, which is important for the private sector. This factor proves to be equally
important in developing and developed countries. Reviews of
city strategies suggest that strong leadership may be one of
the make-or-break factors in the success of strategic planning. This was clearly the case in Colombo (Sri Lanka), where
the election of a new mayor in 1997 led to the reshaping of
the governance structure, which allowed for a more inclusive
and productive strategic-planning process. 8
The participatory approach to designing a strategy
grounds it in the local context and helps create a
coalition around it. Only a strategy that accounts for the
interests of businesses and community groups can make the
best use of local knowledge that cannot be accessible to city
government, analysts and experts. And only through resolving the conflicting interests of different groups through debate and dialogue can a city build a coalition that will support
the implementation of high-priority projects in the strategy.
In Cali (Colombia), a series of workshops organized as a part
of the strategy-development process helped overcome the
atmosphere of distrust between key local actors and helped
define shared priority areas. 9
When talking about job creation and economic
growth, the private sector is the key counterpart for
the city. Businesses know best what is important for their
growth. That is why establishing private-public dialogue is an
important component of successful strategic actions in places
like Bucaramanga and Gaziantep.10 It is also recognized as
an element of critical importance in the London Economic
Development Strategy. 11
Experience on the ground shows that leadership and
dialogue can take many different shapes. Most of the
LED and CDS literature insists on the central role of the
city government in the strategic-planning process, but the
experience of successful cities in developing countries shows
that, when public officials struggle to get their act together,
private actors can lead the way, as they did in Bucaramanga.12
This points to the need for more flexibility in the way that the
coalitions and institutions that take charge over developing
and implementing strategies are perceived and structured.13
The capacity of local actors is one of the crucial fac­
tors for the success of strategies, because it defines both
the ability to identify the correct strategic interventions and
to implement them. The low capacity of the local government
is one of the key constraints for strategic planning in developing countries.14 Although it is clear that public-sector capacity should continue to be addressed through training and
other capacity-building exercises, more attention should be
given to the ability of private actors to form coalitions and to
play a greater role in developing and implementing strategies.
Thus, what should matter most is the cumulative capacity of
local growth coalitions, rather than of the city government
on its own.
A number of sources point out that coordination with
national and regional governments is an important
success factor for a strategy-development process.
Coordination protects strategies from potential conflicts
among different levels of government and helps attract
national and regional resources for strategy implementation.
Vertical coordination was identified as one of the crucial
enabling condition in Qazvin City15 in Iran and across a range
of cities in Southeast Asia.16
What is often missing from the debate, however,
is the importance of national regulations as a po­
tential major constraint for the design of and the
efficient implementation of city strategies. Often,
city governments do not have full control over the content
of the strategy, its implementation process or its funding. In
many cases, national governments require cities to develop
a strategic document following certain guidelines. Requirements for these documents are sometimes poorly designed,
and not enough support and resources are provided to local
governments in order to produce high-quality strategies and
implementation plans. Box 6 offers an example of CIDPs in
Kenya. The experience of Kenya clearly shows that strategies
developed without clear guidance, under capacity restrictions
and misconstrued incentives, will struggle to lead to improved competitiveness of cities. (See box 2)
Box 2: Challenges in the Kenya CIDP process
As a part of the devolution reform implemented in
2012, counties in Kenya were required to produce Community Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs). Counties
were informed that the distribution of national grants
and fiscal transfers would be guided by projects included
in the CIDPs and that projects that were not presented
in CIDPs would not be funded.
The deadline for submitting CIDPs for national government approval was set at six months from the date
when the counties (which were new territorial units)
were established. New governments were expected
to assemble teams and conduct thorough studies of
local conditions in less than six months – yet counties
lacked the resources and skilled staff, and were offered little
technical assistance. Three national ministries issued CIDP
guidelines, but unfortunately these contradicted one another
in parts. In addition, the process of submission and approval
of the CIDPs, as well as their legal status, was not clear to all
counties.
As a result of this process, most of the CIDPs produced were
of relatively low quality, and they contained “shopping lists”
of projects rather than focused strategic priorities. Counties
saw national grants as the only way of attracting funding,
and thus they were motivated to include as many projects as
possible into the CIDPs.
Source: World Bank (Forthcoming) Kenya Urbanization Review
11
Content
One of the key conclusions of this review is that, while
methodologies and approaches collected under various
city-strategies banners share many common features,
they are also very different. In order to tackle the question
of the scope of city strategies, an attempt was made to identify
the thematic areas they traditionally cover. While strategies
share common themes, their focus and priorities differ substantially across different approaches, and it is scarcely possible to
define a complete vocabulary of subject areas. In the documents
reviewed, the following types of interventions and policy levers
appear to be included in strategy documents most frequently:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Infrastructure and service-provision upgrades;
Industrial policy, including the development of industrial
zones, investment promotion and other forms of support;
Support for SMEs and entrepreneurs;
Skills development and job-creation programs;
Regulatory and business-environment reforms;
Institutional reforms, change in governance practices and
capacity-building; and
Regeneration, quality-of-life and environment-related
interventions.
The precise choice of levers included in a given strategy
will reflect local conditions, and thus they will be differ­
ent in each strategy. The content of effective strategies is largely
defined by the power available to local governments. For example, in
South Africa, local administrations chose to act in areas where
they had leverage, rather than in areas where the challenges
appeared more significant or urgent but where the city had little
control over them. By contrast, other strategies included interventions that were outside cities’ authority, and for these reasons
were “wish lists” for national governments. This observation
implies the need for the inclusion of many stakeholders and the
national government in the strategic-planning process, which
should expand the leverage available to strategy-makers.17
While the content of each city strategy should be
unique, certain rules about the content of city
strategies are universally accepted. The importance of
strong analytical exercises as the foundation of any strategy
is recognized across all sources of evidence.18 Similarly, most
sources recommend focusing on formulating a vision for the
city that is ambitious yet realistic, capturing a set of clearly
measurable targets. That vision should also ensure that some
of the targets can be achieved quickly, to prove the potential
of the strategy and strengthen public support for it.
However, a number of questions about the content
of city strategies remain a subject of debate. The
literature on city strategies appears to offer disparate views
on whether a strategy should be focused on a limited set of
issues or should be comprehensive, covering a wide range of
local socioeconomic issues. Cities Alliance’s CDS approach
recommends identifying a limited number of key avenues
along which the strategy should evolve.19 On the other hand,
a review of CDS projects conducted in the 1990s shows that
one of the key difficulties was associated with moving the
12
debate beyond the main issues and with acknowledging the
wide range of problems that the city should address.20 Those
two approaches, however, are not necessarily contradictory.
Cities should aim to combine broad comprehensive
analytics and prioritized interventions. The recent case
studies of successful cities showed that successful cities often
have a main “theme” – something that they systematically
pursued: For Gaziantep in Turkey, it was export-led growth
driven by the carpet-making sector; for Changsha in China, it
was the development of a world-class construction-machinery
sector; for Kigali in Rwanda, it was maintaining an image of a
clean and orderly city.21 However, that didn’t necessarily mean
that those cities were limited to those subjects in their strategic
thinking: They considered and analyzed a wide range of issues
and market opportunities, and they combined interventions
that targeted general improvements to the business and social
environments with targeted support for businesses and sectors
with high growth potential. While there is no clear, universal
answer, it appears that a good strategic exercise would adopt
a rather broad and open-minded approach in the analytical
stage; however, it would limit the number of priority projects
that it would aim to achieve in the implementation stage.
While each city strategy should be unique, it is import­
ant that every strategic-planning exercise maintain a
strong focus on economic growth and job creation. City
strategies, by their very nature, are multidimensional exercises, and they should include a range of subjects including spatial
patterns of development, service provision and infrastructure
planning. However, the experience of most competitive cities,
as well as the examples of strategies of world leaders, shows
that economic-development considerations should play a
prominent role and should act as an organizing framework for
identifying top-priority interventions. Sometimes it is difficult
for cities to adopt such an approach, because the most urgent
issues may be related to service provision and housing (that
was the case, for example, in Colombo22 in Sri Lanka) and
because the economic-development mandate of a city government may be limited. However, in the long run, only economic
growth can guarantee job creation and the expansion of budget
revenues that will be needed to improve infrastructure and
service delivery.
The debate about balancing the growth and the pov­
erty-alleviation agendas in urban strategy is particu­
larly relevant in the context of developing countries.
One viewpoint suggests that, under the particularly difficult
conditions of urbanization in Africa, when cities become
welfare centers for the displaced rural poor, social services
and the poverty-alleviation agenda should take center stage
in city strategies.23 As a result, a distinction emerges between
“pro-growth” approaches to urban strategies (which are more
typical in cities in the developed world) and “welfarist” or “propoor” strategies (which are prominent in cities in developing
countries). In fact, this has manifested itself in a new brand
of strategies focused on “self-reliance, survival and poverty
alleviation, rather than participation in the global economy,
competitiveness, and finding market niches.”24 In this case,
again, the problem should not be envisioned as a choice between two absolutes. Overall, a well-designed strategy should
pay attention to the social distribution of economic benefits
while maintaining a focus on growth and job creation. Finding
a balance between the two is the most difficult part.
Successful cities combine cross-cutting improvements
to the city’s business environment with targeted
interventions to support businesses with the highest
growth potential. There often are debates about the tools
that should be used to support the city economy. Targeted
industrial-policy interventions, such as industrial zones, can
show quick results, but they are often blamed for “picking
winners and losers.” Cross-cutting interventions – such as
streamlined regulatory processes and road improvements –
are necessary, but they often take time to promote economic
outcomes. The answer is simple: There is no need to choose.
Successful cities in the developing world25 and cities that are
world leaders26 combine both types of interventions.
Observations of various strategies show that the for­
mat of the strategy is not one of the things that mat­
ters very much. Guidelines for strategy development, and
particularly recommendations that national governments give
to cities, often focus on such factors as the way that strategies
should be structured and the choice of documents they should
be associated with. But strategies in many different formats
have sometimes proven successful and have sometimes proven
disastrous. In fact, some of the cities studied didn’t even have a
formal strategy, but rather had a widely shared understanding,
among key actors, of the guiding vision and key priorities. In
the end, it is not a thick strategy volume that helps a city develop, but a well-grounded understanding of the local economy
and its growth potential that is shared by key stakeholders.
Implementation
A good strategy is a strategy that can be implemented.
It is crucial that the development of implementation plans and
the setup of institutional structures for implementation be
a crucial part of the city strategy-development process. This
can be done in many different ways. Sydney’s and London’s27
development strategies are accompanied by separate implementation plans that are revised on a regular basis; New York’s
strategic plan includes a detailed implementation framework
with clear targets and timelines for high-priority projects.28
A major part of planning for implementation is setting
up a monitoring and evaluation framework. While
importance of M&E is widely accepted, the debates about
relevant indicators are extensive. Approaches differ in complexity and level of detail. However, it remains most important
that the framework be well-linked to high-priority actions and
that it be implementable within the available capacities for
monitoring. (For example: Are there enough staff members
to track key outcomes?) The capacity of local actors should be
accounted for within the implementation framework, and the
capacity-building of M&E units should be part of the strategy
implementation process – especially in low-income countries,
where capacity is one of the main restrictions.
In addition to measuring the progress of strategy im­
plementation, successful cities should be able to learn
from their mistakes and adjust policies and projects
and their implementation strategies. If certain initiatives have failed, a city should be able to accept failure and go
back to the drawing board, as Changsha did when it refused
to extend incentives for an electronics manufacturer that
departed after the initial incentives package expired.29
The empirical literature highlights the risks of a lack
of continuity in strategy implementation. Political
change often leads to a change in direction. Strategies designed
by outgoing governments are often abandoned for purely political reasons, which was the case in Santiago, Chile30 and more
recently in Tbilisi, Georgia. While it is counterproductive to restrict changes to strategic priorities for new governments, it is
important to limit the possibility of drastic and rapid changes
of direction. This can be done through the institutionalization
of strategy, building it into the day-to-day practices of governance, and possibly through the introduction of formal rules
that need to be followed to change the strategy, including conducting analysis and consultations and gaining the approval of
key partners.31 A drastic change of direction is far less likely if
strategy is owned by a diverse public-private growth coalition,
rather than if it is contained within government.
Another important aspect of the continuity of imple­
mentation is the security of funding sources. High-priority projects can only materialize if they are tied to a predictable source of funding. In the developed-country context,
this is done through tying priorities to the budgeting process
and through developing separate funding mechanisms for
long-term investments. In the developing-country context,
this is more difficult to accomplish, and implementation is
often shaped by the availability of resources.32 Whether a
project gets implemented or not is often a matter of the participation of donors and development partners, which is the
case, for example, with most of the CIDPs of the counties in
Kenya.19 While this is not necessarily bad, cities should make
an effort to tie strategic priorities to sources of funding.
In ideal conditions, continuity should be a charac­
teristic of the overall strategic-planning process. The
presence of a continuous strategic-planning process is something that usually distinguishes cities in the developed world.
The plans of world-leading cities that this analysis reviewed are
not “one-off” documents: They are instead part of a continuing
long-term planning and economic-development process. Strategic documents build on previous strategies and the results
of their implementation. Strategic planning is recognized as
one of the crucial functions of urban governance, and it is
performed on a continuing basis by a unit within the government that is specifically set up for that mission. While such an
approach may appear ambitious, particularly for low-income
countries, it should be seen as a key ambition of any city’s
strategic-planning projects. The priority should shift from
developing strategic documents to creating infrastructure and
building local capacity for continuous strategic planning.
13
The London Plan 46
New York City Strategic planning 45
Rasoolimanesh et al. city strategies 44
CDS in south Mediterranean 43
CDS (ADB) 42
LED (UN-Habitat) 41
LED review (ILO) 40
SUDP in LAC 39
GHK CDS review 38
OECD LED review 37
LED (UN-Habitat) 36
CDS (Cities Alliance) 35
LED (WB) 34
Table 1. Key success factors in city strategies
Conceptual
methodologies
Reviews of LED
cases
Strategies of
advanced cities
Sydney Economic Development Strategy 47
Case studies of six successful developing world cities 48
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Private sector inclusion
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Strong analytical base
P
Strategy should build on existing institutional structures and
ongoing interventions
P
Holistic, approach combining “horizontal” and “vertical
interventions
P
Strong focus on economic growth
P
Focus on capacity building,
P
Support from national/regional government
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Flexibility, adaptability & revisions
P
Institutionalization to ensure continuity / establishing a
permanent planning process
Implementation
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Clarity about sources of funding, links to budgeting process
P
Monitoring and evaluation
P
Implementation structures/clear distribution of responsibilities
and institutions structure
P
Quick visible results
P
Clear strategic vision
P
Clear measures of success
P
Clear priorities
P
Inclusion of informal economy
Content
P
P
P
Future foresight analysis
Preconditions
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Participation and ownership of key local actors
This table is a product of a literature review, and reflects author’s interpretations of different approaches to LED strategy.
Different authors use different language, when describing seemingly similar success factors, interpretation and matching of such instances is a product of author’s best judgment.
Only factors that are mentioned in more than two sources were listed in the table
14
Strong leadership/Commitment of the head of the city government
Focus on three critical areas
In the previous section, we offered an overview of
the parameters that, according to several sources of
evidence, are associated with good strategies. This
section focuses on three specific elements of strat­
egies that, judging by the literature and the empir­
ical evidence, are identified as the most significant
concerns for LED and CDS practitioners. Each of them
relates to a separate broad aspect of strategic planning (preconditions, content and implementation). They are:
1. the role of public and private stakeholders in the
development and the implementation of the city strategy
(Preconditions);
2. the role of analytics in strategy development (Content);
and
3. the sources of funding for strategy development and
implementation (Implementation).
Who should take the lead in the strategic
planning and implementation process, and
how should it be organized?
Most LED literature suggests that the public sector
should lead the strategic planning process, but that
private-sector involvement both in planning and
implementation is crucial. However, the literature also
claims that there are no pre-set roles and that arrangements
should be flexible, reflecting the capacity of local actors and
the nature of local networks.
In many cases, the LED approach is defined by its col­
laborative nature. The World Bank Group’s Local Economic
Development Primer asserts: “By its nature, local economic
development is a partnership between the business sector,
community interests and municipal government. LED is usually strategically planned by local government in conjunction
with public- and private-sector partners. Implementation is
carried out by the public, the private and the non-governmental sectors according to their abilities and strengths.” 49
This definition sums up several key ideas about the roles that
different actors play in the LED process, as will be discussed
in further detail below.
The conventional LED wisdom suggests that, for a
collaborative process to run smoothly, it must be
underpinned by a well-designed, sustainable institu­
tional structure. Most of the LED literature recommends
that such collaboration and coordination bodies be designed
and established early on. A UN-Habitat study suggests that
LED processes that are carried out on a project-by-project ba-
sis tend to be less successful.50 The examples of organizations
that can take charge of the LED process include community
organizations, business associations or chambers of commerce and local government departments.51 Another option
is to use purpose-built collaborative entities, which allow
for a high level of flexibility in terms of the roles of different
stakeholders. These institutions can be geared toward resolving particular collaboration challenges specific to the local
context. Real-world examples of such entities include52:
•
Social Impact Project (a government-community-business-NGO partnership for sustainable development in
Poland);
•
The government-business partnership in Lontras, Brazil
that has decision-making powers over the Local Sustainable Development Plan;
•
The government-private sector participatory planning
committee for sustainable growth in Ol Kalou, Kenya.
The citizens were informed of the challenges of the
planning process and budgetary shortfalls, which led to a
substantial increase in tax collection.
Most of the LED and CDS literature starts with the
premise of the importance of public-sector leader­
ship, but it also devotes significant attention to tech­
niques of building partnerships with private-sector
and other local actors. OECD research suggests that the
development of new forms of partnerships should be considered one of the key innovations in the LED field in recent decades. (See Box 3 for the characteristics of good partnerships
in LED.) However, the report is more nuanced, and does not
suggest that all partnerships are good. It clarifies this point:
“The best partnership is not necessarily the most inclusive.
By contrast, successful partnerships tend to be based around
a limited set of core partners whose strategic involvement
is essential and who offer major or strategically significant
resources.”53
Building a partnership with the private sector
doesn’t guarantee success. There are plenty of examples of failed partnerships. In South Africa, the model of
a dedicated LED Unit/Department was commonly used,
and was premised on the idea that local governments with
wide networks of stakeholders would advance development
within the municipality. Most LED initiatives had formalized
partnerships, most commonly with business, chambers of
commerce and/or educational authorities, but also with City
Improvement Districts, community groups and foreign agencies. However, in practice, this model suffered from a lack of
clear objectives and a lack of leadership, because municipalities preferred to take the role of participants rather than of
facilitators.54
15
The notion of public-sector leadership and a key role
in partnership-building becomes problematic in low­
er-capacity environments. Here, local governments may
struggle to structure the involvement of the private sector
in a strategic-planning process. A study of CDS initiatives
in East Asia revealed that, while local authorities were eager
to engage the private sector, they were uncertain of how to
proceed beyond involving the private sector in the provision
of infrastructure or in the quest for general advice. 55
Case studies of six successful cities performed by the
World Bank Group suggest that a successful local­
ly-initiated LED process is often led by private-sector
coalitions and can rely or informal networks and
connections. Coimbatore in India, Gaziantep in Turkey and
Bucaramanga in Colombia are examples of places where local
governments were not the leading force behind those cities’
very successful economic development efforts, which were
driven by continuing dialogue that largely relied on informal
links among stakeholders.56 Private-sector-led strategic economic-development initiatives at the city level are underrepresented in the literature, and LED/CDS methodologies only
allow for limited engagement of private-sector actors.
The strategy-implementation structure should allow
for some flexibility to suit the local context. There is no
one-size-fits-all organizational model for strategic economic
planning, given the variation in local conditions, the capacities of key actors, and the relationships among those actors.
A review of five strategic initiatives in South East Asia concluded that “although there are standard methods and [although]
supporting guidelines were provided, each of the five participating
cities prepared its CDS in its own way. . . . [The] actual implementation has varied between cities. A successful CDS is one that is
owned by the stakeholders, and, as no two cities are the same,
different approaches are to be expected.” 57 The City Alliance approach similarly incorporates some flexibility, thus improving
the process – and the institutional structure should always be
seen as part of a continuing process. 58 (See Box 4 for examples of implementation from the Southern Mediterranean.)
Overall, the evidence on the public- and private-sector roles
in the strategic planning suggests:
•
LED methodologies usually imply that local governments should take the lead, because (in most cases) they
ensure broader inclusion, participation and continuity. Cases
in which the private sector has superior capacity
and is well-positioned to lead LED are, with rare exceptions, overlooked in the literature, while evidence
collected from the cases that didn’t use the methodological
guidance of development agencies shows that private-sector-triggered PPD can be a success.
•
Private-sector participation is encouraged in the
form of consultations during the development stage
and through coordination committees, but there is
little clarity on ways to engage business in the implementation
process.
•
It is recommended that the approach to strategy
design and implementation be flexible. Even if rigid
guidelines are offered, they are rarely followed in practice,
especially because the capacity and attitudes of private- and
public-sector actors vary greatly.
•
Institutional structures represent the most constant component of any strategic-development effort. Policies, interventions and actors may change in response to changing
conditions, but strong and visible institutions, underpinned by partnerships, is what makes strategies
endure. It also is important to mention that some strategies
can often rely on informal structures and institutions.
Box 3: What makes a good partnership in LED
•
Strong community support. Resolution of problems.
•
Recognized and legitimated roles for each actor.
Each actor must have a clear idea of the benefits
for them of this form of cooperation, and no one
partner must be overly dominant.
•
Results-oriented partnerships. The partners should
aim at defined goals. They should put their resources in “a pool,” accept a certain leadership and create
a functional structure.
•
A degree of autonomy for the partnership, despite
their public funding element. Often, partnerships
will choose to adopt the form of a “separate legal
entity,” a non-profit-making body managed like a
private company.
•
A permanent communication system among the
partners.
•
Networks of committed individuals, not merely
networks of organizations.
•
Professional management and transparent structure.
Source: Goldman, I., Rogerson, C., & Frey, A. (2005). Investigation
of Pro Poor Local Economic Development in South Africa Research
Partners :, 27(October).
16
What analytical tools should be used?
Box 4: Strategy implementation structures
A strong analytical foundation is important for city
strategies, but it needs to go beyond data collection
and it needs to be well-linked to the strategy-devel­
opment process. The evidence from the LED case studies
suggests that the analytical components of city strategies
are often the weak links. Box 5 offers some examples of this
factor.
A review of CDS in the Southern Mediterranean region offers
a breadth of examples of different implementation arrangements, illustrating that there are few fixed rules for the
design of an LED structure.
Most approaches to LED and CDS include an analyt­
ical component. Overall, a combination of qualitative and
quantitative assessments is common, and a SWOT analysis
is the most widely used tool for data aggregation. However,
analytical techniques vary significantly in accordance with
the focus of a given methodology (e.g., poverty alleviation or
economic growth).
From the review of LED methodologies mentioned
above, it appears that there is more attention given
to data collection than to the process for structuring
data in a way that best informs and supports deci­
sions. All the methodologies of the studies in our review
include analytical components that combine the use of primary and secondary data, both qualitative and quantitative.
However, their primary focus is often on methods of data
collection rather than on analytical tools. There is less detail
on the process of converting data points into decisions and
priorities. A SWOT analysis is the most widely suggested aggregation tool, and more sophisticated analytical techniques
are rarely mentioned.
The depth of analytical exercises often reflects the
capacity of local governments. Secondary cities in
lower-income countries tend to struggle the most.
This can clearly be seen in the case of Kenya, where the
County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) of Nairobi
and Mombasa – the country’s two largest cities and economic
hubs – include much more sophisticated and detailed analytical exercises than do the strategies of smaller counties.59
Examples of the city strategies of advanced cities
show that the analytical process should be a perma­
nent function. In New York, London and Sydney, economic
performance is monitored and strategies and priorities are
re-evaluated on an annual basis, even though the overarching
strategic development priorities remain unchanged.
There is a consensus about the crucial importance of thorough
analytics.
In Tetouan, Morocco, the Morocco Urban Forum (a
public-private sector association) acted as the executive
leader.
•
In Sfax, Tunisia, two different attempts at CDS were
led by the local mayor and the National Federation of
Tunisian Cities.
•
In Settat and EL Jadida, CDS efforts were led by city governors and were implemented by teams of local officials.
•
In Alexandria, tree committees were set up for each of
the pillars of the CDS, useing external consultants to
provide expertise and training to improve capacity.
•
In Aleppo and Ramalah, CDS benefited from the support
of GIZ, an association of German development agencies.
Source: Urban Development Strategies in the Mediterranean. (2011). For
a full classification of implementation structures see The User’s Guide to
Implementing City Competitiveness Interventions, developed by the CCKB
team.
•
A good analytical process is not defined by the use of specific
techniques, but rather by an adherence to the key stages of the
analytical exercise: data collection, aggregation, analysis that
goes beyond purely descriptive processing, and the interpretation of results that can inform selection of strategic priorities.
All of these factors can only be possible if strong technical
experts are available.
•
However, in developing-country environments, analytical
tasks are often implemented poorly due to two main factors:
lack of data and lack of technical capacity. This leads to the
following trends in the existing city-strategy cases from
low-income countries:
---
In addition, world-leading cities use future-foresight
exercises, as well as analysis of current situation and
lessons from the past. London’s plan uses multi-scenario
forecasts to prioritize interventions. Sydney’s strategy discusses likely global trends that will affect the city. New York’s
plan looks into the growth potential of individual sectors. In
summary, the following conclusions can be made about the
analytical components of LEDs:
•
•
--
•
Focus on collecting data and lack of focus on analysis;
Weak links between analysis and strategies, and analysis
for the sake of analysis.
Analysis is often outsourced, which means that the
analytics can’t be performed continuously throughout
the lifecycle of a strategy. This highlights the need for
building local technical capacity for data analysis in
order to make data analysis a permanent function of city
administrations.
Examples of world-leading cities show that the analytical
process should not be seen as a one-off exercise but should be a
continuing process that combines tracking the current state of
the economy with forecasting potential events.
17
How should a strategy be funded?
Box 5: Analytical shortcomings of CDS and
LED strategies – some examples
The review of evidence has found a broad range of
examples of funding mechanisms that can be used for
LED strategies. For example:
•
•
In EU countries, European grants play a major role in funding
strategy development and implementation. However, in most
cases, national and municipal budgets contribute as well.50
•
In South Africa, the funding for strategies predominantly comes from public budgets, and there is a large gap
between large and small cities. Resources available to government LED units ranged from R100 000 in Umhlatuze
(R0.3 per capita) to R51.8 million in Cape Town (R15 per
capita) in 2004-5 – which is 45 times more per capita.61
There is clear gap in financing of the operations of LED
units between the smaller cities and the larger ones.62
•
In the Southern Mediterranean, city strategies offered
good examples of combining various funding sources. Alongside local budget funding, certain strategies
proposed projects that would be implemented if funding
from international donors was secured (e.g., Alexandria),
while others included sectoral projects that were to be
implemented as part of national programs funded by national ministries (e.g., Settat, El Jadida, Tetouan, Sfax).63
•
In Southeast Asian countries, secondary cities tend to
struggle with identifying funding sources for LED, and
thus strategies sometimes lack detailed funding plans.
Local authorities appear to be overly reliant on external
sources of funding, while the opportunities to raise
funds locally were underused.64
•
•
ADB study of CDS in small cities in Asia: “Most
city stakeholders participating in the RETA
agreed that a CDS should address the issues of
economic development and poverty reduction.
However, many of the . . . cities had neither
analyzed the economic base nor made ap­
propriate projections of economic activity.
Development prospects were merely based
on what was thought to be likely and not
on hard data.” In general, the analysis part
of the CDS was inadequate. Very little data on
the socioeconomic and physical aspects of the
city, and the likely changes, were collected and
analyzed. Except for overall population projections, no estimates of future economic activity
or demand for services and utilities were made.
SWOT analyses were based on incomplete data
on current conditions within the city and on
likely external (national or regional) influences
on growth. In some cities, this led to a number
of problems in identifying and focusing on real
concerns and then prioritizing problems and
action areas.”
The UN-Habitat review of CDS in Bamako, Mali
suggests that, even though the process included
a long analytical phase, the final outcome was
insufficient to inform the long-term program
because it offered just a compilation of data
rather than a strong analysis.
A GHK group review of CDS in a number of cities
in South America, Africa and East Asia highlighted the need for better analytics to inform choices: “However, there is a need to bring more
rigor into the decision-making processes;
good technical information is important in order
to make informed choices and understanding
tradeoffs. In a number of the case-study areas,
key problems related to identifying and focusing
on what matters, and then prioritizing problems
and action areas.”
Sources: Asian Development Bank. (2004). City development strategies to reduce poverty. UN-Habitat. (2002). City development
strategies: Lessons from UMP/UN-HABITAT Experiences. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT. Cities Alliance. (2005). The Impacts of City
Development Strategies. GHK Group of companies. (2000). City
Development Strategies (CDSs) Taking Stock and Signposting the
Way Forward. United Cities and Local Governments, & Centre for
Medeteranean Integration. (2011). Urban Development Strategies
in the Mediterranean.
18
Overall, LED and CDS reviews have tended not to focus
on the issue of funding, yet funding is often mentioned
as being crucial to successful implementation. A review
of a large number of cases where problems with the implementation of (or even the termination of) the strategy were a result of
the disappearance of funding. Most reviews mentioning funding
thus recommend securing funding upfront and linking strategy-implementation plans to cities’ future budgets. However, the
techniques for doing so are often not clearly addressed.
A lack of clear funding sources and strategies for
fundraising often means that the strategy becomes
predominantly a “wish list” of ideas that are likely to
remain merely aspirational. This can be extremely damaging for any city strategy: Stakeholders become disillusioned
and drop their support for the strategic-development process
when they realize that words are not followed by action.
Given the emphasis on a strong sense of ownership among
local actors, it is advisable that local funding sources (public
or private) be seen as a priority for a city strategy. The local
funding is likely to increase both stakeholder engagement in implementation and accountability for spending. However, secondary cities, particularly in low-income countries often cannot sustain a strategy implementation process without external support – so this recommendation will
need to be balanced by the realities of what is financially feasible.
A checklist for a good city strategy
The findings of this chapter can be summarized as a checklist of 12 key elements that city strategies in devel­
oping-world cities should aim to include. While these principles are mostly intuitive, they offer a good first-level filter for
evaluating the quality of strategic documents. We group them as follows:
Preconditions
Implementation
üü Commitment and guarantees from the leader of the city
administration.
üü A detailed yet flexible implementation plan and a structured monitoring and evaluation process.
üü Engaging the private sector (on development and
implementation stages) and civil society in the strategy-development process early on
üü An institutionalization mechanism, to protect the
strategy from political and economic changes.
üü Focus on local institutional structures and their development,
and particularly on local-government capacity-building, which is most relevant for low-income countries.
üü Clear links between city strategic-planning process and the
national policy context, along with the support or approval of regional and national governments.
üü A stable stream of funding and clear links to the budgetary process that will ensure the implementation of strategic
initiatives for years to come.
üü The ambition to establish a recurring economic-development
planning cycle.
Content
üü High-quality analytics that follow the full cycle from data
collection to processing, analysis and interpretation, include
some form of future foresight that can inform the priorities of
the strategy.
üü Strong grounding in the continuing local development
process (leveraging successful initiatives and using existing
networks and institutions), thorough an understanding of
the local conditions and stage of development rather than
aspirations.
üü A vision for the city’s future and a road map for achieving it
through strategically prioritized interventions and
clear measurable targets.
üü Balance between long-term goals and short-term interventions that can lead to quick results, thus helping reinforce
public support for the strategy.
19
Concluding remarks: Improving Strategic Planning for Cities
LED, CDS and other methodologies have become widely used in developed and developing countries for strategic-planning exercises. Evidence collected in this paper shows that, while the use of these approaches has been beneficial for cities, there are gaps
that need to be addressed by donors and development partners to make them more efficient.
Strengths
Gaps
•
LED and CDS methodologies help cities focus on conditions that are unique to each city, and help them design
interventions that reflect each city’s capabilities and that
fit with their networks of stakeholders and institutional
structures.
•
•
LED and CDS initiatives have been useful in facilitating the greater inclusion of businesses and community
groups into the strategic-planning and process and into
city governance overall.
LED and CDS methodologies paid a lot of attention to
participatory approaches, ways of developing partnerships and developing ownership across various groups
of local actors. However, they often provided scant
guidance on analytics, on prioritization and on costing,
budgeting and funding initiatives.
•
Within the recommendations of LED and CDS methodologies on pro­cess and institutional structures, the role
of the public sector tends to be emphasized strongly,
while the role of the private sector is rarely expanded
beyond consultations. Greater attention can be paid to
mechanisms of engaging private sector in decision making and implementation, and even allowing it to lead the
strategic planning exercise.
•
The role of national government in designing the framework for city strategies is often overlooked. That role
deserves greater attention. Poor national frameworks for
city strategies can often distort city-level initiatives.
•
The mainstream understanding of city strategies
remains rather rigid and restricted. In most cases, it
implies government leadership and the presence of a
written strategy document. city strategies should evolve
to incorporate the possibility of a more informal private-sector-driven process (which is illustrated by the
processes in Bucaramanga and Coimbatore). Through
such processes, formal strategic documents can be
replaced by a shared vision of a city’s future and action
plans. Implementation structures can be advanced
through informal networks that draw on the strengths
of personal connections.
•
An improved version of LED and CDS could be based on
offering menus of options for every stage of the strategy
development and implementation process, while paying
much more attention to analytical and prioritization
techniques, to funding options, and to more flexible
institutional frameworks that are open to more informal
planning and implementation mechanisms.
20
Notes
World Bank Group (forthcoming): “Competitive Cities for Jobs and
Growth: What, Who and How?”
1
Rodríguez-Pose, A., & Gill, N. (2003). The global trend towards devolution
and its implications. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy,
21(3), 333–351.
2
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/strategy.html#ixzz3Wqs5UMvh
3
For instance: Cities Alliance (2005, The Impacts of City Development
Strategies) identifies the following sets of indicators of success of City
Development Strategies (CDS): Shelter • Social development and poverty reduction • Environmental management • Economic development •
Governance. A different study commissioned by the Cities Alliance (Kim,
K. (2002). China CDS Performance Indicators Manual, (December)) has
developed a way to evaluate the success of CDS efforts in China. Their
methodology, developed for three Chinese cities suggests tracking at least
20 indicators in four broad categories, only one of which relates to economic
performance.
4
5
Cities Alliance. (2005). The Impacts of City Development Strategies.
Cities Alliance. (2006). City development strategy guidelines : driving
urban performance (September 2005).
6
7
See Table 1 for references to all of the literature sources reviewed.
GHK Group of companies. (2000). City Development Strategies (CDSs)
Taking Stock and Signposting the Way Forward, 44(July).
8
GHK Group of companies. (2000). City Development Strategies (CDSs)
Taking Stock and Signposting the Way Forward, 44(July).
9
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
10
Mayor of London (2010)The Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy for
London
11
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
12
Roles of private and public actors in the strategic planning process are
discussed in the next chapter.
13
Tijmstra, S., & Rodriguez-Pose, A. (n.d.). Local Economic Development as
an alternative approach to economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
14
Rasoolimanesh, S. M., Jaafar, M., & Badarulzaman, N. (2014). Examining the contributing factors for the successful implementation of city
development strategy in Qazvin City, Iran. Cities, 41, 10–19. doi:10.1016/j.
cities.2014.05.002
15
Asian Development Bank. (2004). City development strategies to reduce
poverty.
16
17
Urban Development Strategies in the Mediterranean. (2011).
More detail on role of analytics in strategy making is offered in the next
chapter
18
Cities Alliance. (2006). City development strategy guidelines : driving
urban performance, (September 2005).
19
GHK Group of companies. (2000). City Development Strategies (CDSs)
Taking Stock and Signposting the Way Forward, 44(July).
20
Mayor of New York. (2009). The Five Borough Economic Opportunity
Plan; Mayor of London. (2010). The Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy for London
26
Mayor of London. (2010). The Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy
for London. Mayor of London. (n.d.). The London Plan.; City of Sydney.
(2013). Economic Development Strategy. Sydney’s Economy: Global City,
Local Action.
27
Mayor of New York. (2009). The Five Borough Economic Opportunity
Plan.; Mayor of New York. (n.d.). DIVERSE CITY : NYC Economic Diversification Program; New York Regional Economic Council Members and Staff.
(2011). New York City Regional Economic Development Council Strategic
Plan.
28
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
29
Steinberg, B. F. (2002). Strategic urban planning in Latin America Strategic Urban Planning in Latin America.
30
Rasoolimanesh, S. M., Jaafar, M., & Badarulzaman, N. (2014). Examining the contributing factors for the successful implementation of city
development strategy in Qazvin City, Iran. Cities, 41, 10–19. doi:10.1016/j.
cities.2014.05.002
31
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities
32
33
World Bank (Forthcoming) Kenya Urbanization Review
34
Swinburn, G. (2006). Local Economic Development: a Primer.
Cities Alliance. (2006). City development strategy guidelines : driving
urban performance, (September 2005).
35
UN-Habitat. (2005). Development through Strategic Planning Volume 1 :
Quick Guide (Vol. 1).
36
37
GHK Group of companies. (2000). City Development Strategies (CDSs)
Taking Stock and Signposting the Way Forward, 44(July).
39
International Labour Organization. (2007). Local Economic Development for Employment Generation Peace and Security (approaches, tools and
good practice used in the Philippines).
UN-Habitat. (2002). City development strategies :Lessons From UMP/
UN-HABITAT Experiences. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT.
41
Asian Development Bank. (2004). City development strategies to reduce
poverty
42
United Cities and Local Governments, & Centre for Mediterranean Integration. (2011). Urban Development Strategies in the Mediterranean.
43
Rasoolimanesh, S. M., Jaafar, M., & Badarulzaman, N. (2014). Examining the contributing factors for the successful implementation of city
development strategy in Qazvin City, Iran. Cities, 41, 10–19. doi:10.1016/j.
cities.2014.05.002
44
Mayor of New York. (2009). The Five Borough Economic Opportunity
Plan.; Mayor of New York. (n.d.). DIVERSE CITY : NYC Economic Diversification Program; New York Regional Economic Council Members and Staff.
(2011). New York City Regional Economic Development Council Strategic
Plan.
45
Mayor of London. (2010). The Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy
for London. Mayor of London. (n.d.). The London Plan.
46
GHK Group of companies. (2000). City Development Strategies (CDSs)
Taking Stock and Signposting the Way Forward, 44(July).
47
Harris, N. (1990). Urbanization, economic development and policy in
developing countries, (19).
48
Tijmstra, S., & Rodriguez-Pose, A. (n.d.). Local Economic Development as
an alternative approach to economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
49
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
50
22
23
24
25
Steinberg, B. F. (2002). Strategic urban planning in Latin America  :, (22).
40
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
21
OECD. (n.d.). Best practices in local development, 1–128.
38
City of Sydney. (2013). Economic Development Strategy. Sydney’s Economy: Global City, Local Action.
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities.
The World Bank, & Swinburn, G. (2006). Local Economic Development:
a Primer.
Rasoolimanesh, M., & Badarulzaman, N. (n.d.). A review of city development strategies success factors, 62–78
21
The User’s Guide to Implementing City Competitiveness Interventions,
developed by the CCKB team offers a full classification of various implementation structures that are usually used at a city level.
51
UN-Habitat. (2005). Promotin Local Economic Development through
Strategic Planning: Vlolume 4: Action Guide (Vol. 4).
52
53
OECD. (n.d.). Best practices in local development, 1–128.
Hindson, D., & Vicente, V. (2005). WHITHER LED IN SOUTH AFRICA?
54
Asian Development Bank. (2004). CITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES
TO REDUCE POVERTY.
55
Kulenovich Z.K., Cech, A (2015) Six Case Studies of Economically Successful Cities
56
57
Asian Development Bank. (2004). City development strategies to reduce
58
Cities Alliance. (2005). The Impacts of City Development Strategies.
22
Mukim, M., Sivaev, D (forthcoming) County Competitiveness in Kenya,
In World Bank(forthcoming)Kenya Urbanization Review
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Tern, K. W., & Kingdom, U. (2011). Good policies and practices to tackle
urban challenges, 33(July).
60
R denotes the South African Rand currency. US$ 1 was equal to approximately R7 in 2003-04.
61
Goldman, I., Rogerson, C., & Frey, A. (2005). Investigation of Pro Poor
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62
63
Urban Development Strategies in the Mediterranean. (2011).
Asian Development Bank. (2004). City development strategies to reduce
poverty
64
23
Funding for the companion papers and main report was provided by
CIIP
Competitive Industries and Innovation Program
Financed by
in partnership with
www.theciip.org
Find the companion papers and main report at
www.worldbank.org/competitivecities